sfws

goobledy gook, sdadwwefs
Jesus...you are too intense man cant everybody here just like relax and smoke a bowl or something. I was talking about the time line, which I see a huge boost beyond eisenhower with Kennedys commitment and embracement of the 'domino theory"in the early 60's. I believe Johnson and McNammara are the most responsble for micro-managing and increasing troop strength, etc, etc there. if I'm so right winged that I blame kennedy instead of Johnson, why would that matter, there both democrats. Kennedy was the most blatantly interested in south east asia, and set Johnson up for the mistakes he later made with mcnamrra, who is blamed by many people for fouling up the war, what enrages lots of vets is that he thought the war was unwinnable way back in 65 but continued anyway until he resigned. Kennedy was scared way back about north vietnam spreading through laos and camobdia, etc, lots of rubber and resources in SE asia, thank god there were just Sadamites(hehe) for us to fight in mid east instead of communists.

Just keep rollin' 'em out JB, you haven't yet plumbed the depths of your historical ignorance, i take it.

Baldimo, you are making me laugh. Really, sit down and take a deep breath for a minute. Think about science and representative samples and control groups and such. "Most vets I know" supports nothing other than an indication of the type of people you know. Not saying anything bad about those people, but they are not representative of anything.

And another thing, please stop disrespecting hippies. Hippies are good people, or most of us are.......at least all the ones I know. A bad war is a bad war. And an unnecessary one is always bad. Good for us who had and have the courage of our convictions to say so. We'll say it loud and long. I think you're right that hippies did play a part in the awakening of the nation to the atrocities of the Vietnam war. More power to us.

AFASDF
Hippys were like a delayed rebellion agiasnt authority, they were the atrocity more than any single act in NAm. it was NVA's psychological warfare and the hippy movement was sthe spunge for the North's propaganda which ultimately helped divide and cripple our country, thats nothing to be proud of basically the hippys symbolized both innocence and immaturity. I saw a program with an old POW from hanoi and he said he was interviewed by a Vietnamese inteliigence officer who told him they weren't going to win this war on the battlefeilds of vietnam but in the streets of New York City, mission accomplished hippy thanks for weakening us based on media coverage you couldn't handle emotionally thanks for cutitng off funds(ted kennedy) and creating a generation of boat people in south vietnam great legacy for you. divide and conquer aye, well thanks for plagueing the latter half of the twentieth century

Don't be calling me scum, boy . . . that's a clear violation of the terms of service.

The right wing lunatic fringe in this country has been trying to pin the Viet Nam on Kennedy since the late 1960's, because if always frosted their balls that Kennedy was charismatic, successful and popular. Kennedy inherited the southeast Asian problem from Eisenhower, just as he inherited the Bay of Pigs and the dairy farmers strike. The consequences of Eisenhower's decision to involve us in southeast Asia are with us today, just as are the consequences of the Bay of Pigs and the dairy farmers strike. The frothing at the mouth condemnations of Kennedy and the Democrats, despite the problem beginning in a Republican adminstration, and reaching a blood-drenched, hysterical crescendo in a Republican adminisration, are gross historical distortions of the right wing lunatic fringe--unlike the Bay of Pigs and the dairy farmers strike. Every administration leaves a mess for the next one to clean up, and those who can't free their minds from partisan rhetoric are the ones who need to play the blame game and to vilify the targets who scare them the most--like John Kennedy.

Yeah, shouting and name-calling, that's going to really make your argument for you. You know nothing more about Nixon and his Silent Majority horseshit and nothing more about "hippies" than you do about Kennedy and Viet Nam. The entire rant you're puking up here is merely pathetic.

sdfsd
get a sense humor shessshhh. why are you so caught up on Kennedy, who cares about kennedy, whatever you want to say about einsenhower aside Kennedy perpuated us into Veitnam all the same, you are the partisan one always trying to deflect any criticism of Kennedy. when kennedy took office vietnam could have stayed off the table militarily despite Eisnenhowers' worries and after kennedy left conflict was inevitable, with that many military people comiited over there it was just waiting to ignite. How can you try to dodge this so much, no one is trying villify Kennedy, just aknowledge his involvement at a critical juncture in the conflict. your the one name calling here, everytime you finsh saying something you interject a personal insult aimed at me.

JB, i have not called you scum as you have done toward me, so you might think about how the pot calls the kettle black. I have simply pointed out your profound historical ignorance, and your continued insistence that Kennedy started a war which he did not start. Eisenhower sent the military to southeast Asia, and you have made outrageous statements such as: "Kennedy was the most blatantly interested in south east asia,"--which is false. He began his presidency dealing with a dairy farmers strike that Eisenhower had allowed to fester because he was a lame duck and knew he could dodge the issue. They were still, unsuccessfully, attempting to deal with the legacy of that dairy strike in the Reagan administraiton. From there, he went right in over his head with the Bay of Pigs fiasco, which he inherited from Eisenhower. The foci of his political agenda were civil rights and social security disability, which Johnson was able to pass after the assassination, using the mood of the country, and his knowledge of where all the political bodies were buried. Kennedy did not complete even three years in office, and yet you are trying to make him out to be the architect of a political and military situation in southeast Asia which began in 1945 and did not end until 1975. The consequences are still with us today. It is an article of recieved wisdom among the right wing lunatic fringe that Kennedy was responsible for all of this, and that is just plain crap, and it is motivated by partisan hatred. A Democrat certainly did begin the real war in Viet Nam--Johnson. But Kennedy is the target of this historical lie because the right wing lunatic fringe froths at the mouth at the mere mention of his name. You also display a profound ignorance of the widespread opposition to the war in this country with your continuing statements about "hippies," with which you demonstrate that you know nothing about hippies, and who and what they were, and that you fail completely to understand that the "Silent Majority" did not exist, and that it was housewives, doctors, lawyers and businessmen publicly protesting the war which forced Nixon to send Kissinger to Paris to attempt to negotiate an end to the war. Trying to tell people who lived through this what was going on then is not just stupidity on your part (which is not the same at all as saying that you are stupid--just that you are saying stupid things), it is the equivalent of a fine old American expression, trying to teach your grandmother to suck eggs.

In short, you don't know what the hell you're talking about.

do you get the feeling, Set that the neighborhood is going a little south? wow! It feels like abuzz around here. I think the demise of abuzz may be affecting us.

let's be nicer, please.

I started a thread about it, Lola--"The Afuzz Effect" . . .

In May 1950, President Harry S. Truman authorized a modest program of economic and military aid to the French, who were fighting to retain control of their Indochina colony, including Laos and Cambodia as well as Vietnam. When the Vietnamese Nationalist (and Communist-led) Vietminh army defeated French forces at Dienbienphu in 1954, the French were compelled to accede to the creation of a Communist Vietnam north of the 17th parallel while leaving a non-Communist entity south of that line. The United States refused to accept the arrangement. The administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower undertook instead to build a nation from the spurious political entity that was South Vietnam by fabricating a government there, taking over control from the French, dispatching military advisers to train a South Vietnamese army, and unleashing the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to conduct psychological warfare against the North. Eisenhower acknowledged that, had elections been held as scheduled in Vietnam in 1956, "Ho Chi Minh would have won 80% of the vote"--and no U.S. president wanted to lose a country to communism. Democrats in particular, like Kennedy and Johnson, feared a right-wing backlash should they give up the fight; they remembered vividly the accusatory tone of the Republicans' 1950 question, "Who lost China?" The commitment to Vietnam itself, passed from administration to administration, took on validity aside from any rational basis it might once have had. Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy all gave their word that the United States would stand by its South Vietnamese allies. If the United States abandoned the South Vietnamese, its word would be regarded as unreliable by other governments, friendly or not. So U.S. credibility seemed at stake.

Lola, last night I got a queasy feeling...like my A2k was in trouble.

last night I dreamed I was there in hillbilly heaven.

I resemble that remark!

I remember when I was the loud mouthed right winged nut... the good ol' days...

Man you said it McG! Now I gratefully wait for your posts...for a little civility,

By the end of WWII, Vietnam essentially had liberated herself from the Japanese; the Vietnamese were not at all pleased that in the post-war carve-up they were given back to the French. Interestingly, the constitution they drew up for themselves, expecting themselves to be a fully independent, sovereign nation, drew heavily on the US Constitution. It was the Vietnamese effort to gain independence from the French which built the foundation fror the eventual US involvement and embarrassment.

Oh, and sorta to go with the flavor of the discussion here, to paraphrase Richard Nixon, "Abuzz cannot defeat A2K; only A2Kers can do that"

So - here's the thing, McG - are you less loud mouthed, less nuts, or less right wing now?????

Less when compared to some, more when compared to others.

flush

Is there a toilet emoticon somewhere?

Ohhh, what a bee-you-tee-ful sahahahahahahahght ! ! !



Ah, the oldies and the goodies . . .